This and that….

Today was very wet here. Raining and sleeting and dripping wet stuff from the roof. Yuck. Then this afternoon, the winds kicked up and it was and still is very windy. Waiting for the power to go out. Much like a watched pot, it won’t since I could really go for a nice evening with candlelight….although the music Tom left going for me is quite nice I must admit and that would be gone along with the electricity. Sitting here by the fire in the woodstove in a perfectly quiet house is great… but somehow very empty. Amazing how much you get used to noise, certain very specific family noise, and miss it terribly when it  is no longer around. That must be what empty-nesters hate the most…the quiet. Funny, because as a mother of three boys, quiet is usually a well coveted commodity one that I long for on an almost daily basis but usually don’t get. The opportunity to be silent. Yet isn’t parenthood the antethesis of quiet? I don’t know a parent who really, truly loves quiet.  Family is by definition the absence of quiet. Admit it, quiet scares the wits out of most parents I know. Quiet usually means something is very wrong or someone is sick. Houses with kids are supposed to be noisy. Noise comes with kids, noise is supposed to be here. Kids that are quiet are in trouble or troubled. Neither is good.  Would I love more of these quiet nights to myself? Sure. Would I trade the family I am lucky to have for it? Not in a million years.